


Whether the Sun's Shining or Not

by ashen_key



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Finnick Lives, Cute, F/M, Family, Family Feels, Gen, Parenthood, Post-Canon, Remembrance, Victors (Hunger Games) - Freeform, Victors Have Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-10
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-29 21:02:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3910546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashen_key/pseuds/ashen_key
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Panem's second Liberation Day finds District 4's capitol and Victors' Village flooded, its occupants housebound and unable to participate in the celebrations even if they wanted to. </p><p>All things considered, Annie and Finnick can't bring themselves to mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whether the Sun's Shining or Not

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from the Marty Robbins quote, “Every day is a good day to be alive, whether the sun's shining or not.”

Despite Finnick's best efforts to convert her to the ways of lazing around, and despite being the mother of a baby who has recently discovered how fun it is to run everywhere, Annie remains someone who rolls out of bed before dawn, incapable of staying under the covers any longer than she has to. But this morning is deliciously cool after a horribly humid week and all she can hear is the rain. Finnick's sprawled out beside her, face buried in the pillow, and she can't hear Reed getting into any trouble or being upset. She can indulge, steal a few more minutes just like this-

Except she can't hear Reed.

Very carefully, so as to not disturb Finnick, Annie slides out of her bed and walks out into the hallway. As she gets closer to her son's room, she can hear him talking to himself. No, not talking: singing. Singing in his own little baby language, the only identifiable word being 'uh-oh' repeated again and again throughout the strings of syllables.

As adorable as his singing is, it's not a reassuring song. Annie walks faster. 

She finds Reed standing on the chair next to his window, clutching his stuffed turtle and dancing. A bit of a bop and sway, nodding his head in time to his 'uh-oh's. Except then he goes still with a gasp. Annie rushes over, just in time for Reed to start shrieking in excitement. 

“Momma! Mommamommamomma, _uh-oh!_ ” 

Annie wraps a protective arm around his stomach, getting a secure hold as she peers out the window. 

“Oh, damn,” she mutters as her blue plastic watering can floats into the lower branches of her peony tree. 

Then she winces: just her luck, and her son's next word is going to be a curse. 

Reed babbles at her and she hums an agreement, picking him up with a cheerful, “Okay, let's find Daddy.” 

Finnick's sitting up when she reaches their bedroom, his body poised with the indecision of whether should he get up and investigate the noise. As he sees Annie and Reed, he relaxes back against the headboard with a lazy smile. His eyes, though, meet Annie's and he arches his eyebrows questioningly.

“DADDY!” Reed shrieks, wriggling in Annie's arms until she deposits him into his father's. 

“Are you being loud?” Finnick asks Reed, solemn enough that even the baby knows it's a game. Reed just giggles. 

Annie, perched on the side of the bed as she pulls on her boots, glances over and snorts faintly. 

“We're flooded,” she tells Finnick. “He thinks it's exciting.” 

“How bad is it?” Finnick asks, walking his fingers up Reed's arm to entertain him. 

“I don't think it's up to the top step, but gonna go look.” She stands up to try and locate her skirt, but before she turns around she notices Finnick's smirk. “What?” 

“It's such a shame, really,” he muses. “I was so looking forward to the mayor's office calling for their last ditch effort to get us involved in the-” Finnick stops as Reed waves his turtle around, and amends his next word. “- _Nonsense_ of Panem's second Liberation Day.” He looks back at Annie and grins. “But if _we're_ flooded...” 

Annie smiles back, feeling her mouth go pursed and sly. “And the reporters can't come bangin' on our door,” she adds. 

Finnick's smile has a touch of nastiness to it. “They can try.” 

They'd tried last year: the fishing crew Finnick's worked with for years came to the Odairs' aid, with popular support. District Four wasn't inclined to be nice to Capitol journalists when it came to their only two surviving victors, particularly when their beloved Finnick was still recovering from the injuries he'd sustained during the final fighting. Particularly when they had a young baby. 

This year, it seems, it's the weather's turn to thwart the political and media circus.

Her smile fades, a little, and she ducks her head as she picks up her skirt. Last time the Victors' Village was flooded like this, only victors lived here. They'd talked to each other via open windows, using a couple row boats to get from one house to the other. But now there'd be no Windlass muttering about protecting his books, no Mags and Librae gleefully telling tales of the time the waters reached the second floor. Mags had sacrificed herself in the Games, Naia went down in a firefight with Peacekeepers, Librae killed in a bomb explosion while Windlass and Ran had been marched to a firing squad in the main plaza. 

( _Viva la revolución_ , Ran had reportedly shouted in the old tongue, the girl defiant even to the end. It made for a good story, so it might just be propaganda, but Annie believed it. 

Ran had been like that.)

Reed's laugh breaks through her thoughts, and she turns in time to catch a now standing Finnick blowing another raspberry on their son's stomach. Annie smiles, because she can't help it, because she loves them, because they are her family and they are alive and two years ago Finnick had been lying pale in a hospital bed. New scars on his face, newly reconstructed shoulder and arm still swathed in bandages, eyes showing the wounds of new horrors he still refuses to talk to her about. She'd been sick with pregnancy and fear, her mind trying to turn the hospital room into the Capitol cell she'd been rescued from.

No, today is not a day Annie feels like having a parade and a party on. Finnick meets her eyes, for a moment letting his sombreness show, and she can almost read his mind. Today is not a day he wants to celebrate, either. 

“Pancakes,” Finnick declares, tilting Reed a little upside down when he starts to kick impatiently at the lack of entertainment. 

“Pancakes?”

“I'll make breakfast. Pancakes are the order of the day, perfect flood food. Don't you think so?” he asks the baby, righting him and settling him on his hip. 

“Yes!” Reed shouts. 

Annie refrains from pointing out that Reed also answers 'yes' to questions like 'given the level of technology the pre-Ruin people had, do you think that humanity ever made it to the Moon', and just throws up her hands. “Fine. Pancakes. Given we've suddenly turned into a _democracy._ ” 

“Annie,” Finnick says solemnly, walking over, “celebrating democracy is one of the _many_ things today is all about.” He kisses her before she can answer, soft and lingering. Reed takes the opportunity to grab her hair, but aside from catching his turtle, she makes no sign of acknowledgement for a long, long moment. 

“So it is,” she says softly, finally stepping back and gently tugging her hair free from her son's grasping hand.

“Which means,” Finnick continues, quiet and fond and gazing down at her, “you've been outvoted.”

“I accept, but only because there are pancakes.” 

Annie needs to go downstairs, assess the seals on her doors, the need for sandbags. Finnick needs to go to to Reed's room and change his nappy, change his clothes, assess if the cot needs to be fixed. But she doesn't move and neither does he. She wants to linger, wants to take her family back to bed and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist because they are alive, they are here, and she takes in a deep breath.

“Meet you in the kitchen,” Annie says, but Finnick catches her hand so she has to trail her fingers out of his as she walks out the door. 

Her house (and she still thinks of it as _her_ house, despite her and Finnick both now living in it with their child) is quiet. Quiet enough that as she makes her way down the stairs and across the thankfully dry floor in her foyer, she can hear Finnick talking to Reed upstairs. 

Two years ago, her husband nearly died. She is grateful, so grateful to whoever or whatever decides the odds for each person, that he didn't. But when the odds for so many others rolled them into the grave, a cheering parade seems disrespectful. 

As does ignoring the day, but then, Annie won't ignore it. Neither will Finnick. They'll have breakfast with their son, then call out to the scientists and researchers who now populate the village to make sure they are okay. Then, later, the Odairs will light some candles on the mantelpiece like they did last year in remembrance of those lost and in gratitude of every life won. 

And it will, despite memories and the flood, be a good a day, because they are here to live it.


End file.
